Kasidi Pickering taking winning mentality to Oklahoma softball
HUMBLE, Texas (BVM) – Kasidi Pickering likes to win. In fact, it’s one of the things that helped the Oklahoma softball commit fall in love with softball in the first place. Winning is the reward from hard work. It gives her something to celebrate with her teammates and it shows that her work has the potential to take her places. It’s all contributed to the love she has for softball since she was 5 years old.
Now, 13 years later, Pickering has won a lot. With her travel ball team, Hotshots-Nelson, she has won 10 national championships over the last eight years in various club softball circuits. The winning will continue next year when she heads to Norman, Oklahoma to become a Sooner.
“I’m just ready to be in a different environment and play,” Pickering said. “I worked my whole life to get here, I’m here now and just to live in the moment and have fun.”
For one of the top outfielders and softball players in the country, Oklahoma was always the first option. All it took was a tour of the campus during a softball camp to make Pickering realize that Norman felt like home.
“Oklahoma was always top,” Pickering said. “It was fun to look at other schools and see but Coach Gasso always made me feel extremely important and I knew it’s because of who I am as a person and not because of everything on the field.”
Pickering is part of the No. 2-ranked recruiting class in the nation for the Class of 2023. It’s a group of four girls that are some of the best softball players in the nation.
“I’m really excited,” Pickering said about the Oklahoma recruiting class. “I finally met all three, I met Nelly, she’s from Hawaii and I grew up playing against Ella and Maya so it’s going to be really fun to all be roommates and play together.”
Being a Sooner softball commit is an impressive feat. Oklahoma has been one of the best programs in the country over the last 23 years. The Sooners have won back-to-back national championships twice, including the last two, to go along with national titles in 2013 and 2000.
Pickering considers it a big honor. She is proud of what her hard work has done for her. However, it does have some adverse effects.
“I get walked a lot more,” Pickering said about being an Oklahoma commit.
She got walked 23 times over 34 games last year as a junior for Atascocita High School. It’s a bit of an annoyance but Pickering just takes her base and trusts her teammate will do their job at the plate. She’ll joke that it helps keep her on base percentage up but Pickering really doesn’t need help on that front.
Last season, she had a .608 batting average with 49 RBIs, 14 home runs and a 1.885 OPS. She helped the Eagles get to a 22-12 record and was named an NFCA High School All-American. Atascocita made it to regionals but this season, Pickering and the Eagles are hoping to make a deep postseason run.
“We probably have the best group of girls out of my four years,” Pickering said.
Pickering is already back to her prolific offensive ways. Already, the senior is batting around .500 with about 30 RBIs. It’s a testament to the practice Pickering puts in and her trust in that work when she steps to the plate.
“I really just ‘see ball, hit ball’ like you can’t do so much like you work on hitting and lessons,” Pickering said. “You have to focus on your breathing and just let what I do in practice take over in the game.”
Trusting the work put in has led to a lot of success for Pickering. She’s become one of the best in the nation and next year, she’ll be helping the Sooners compete for a national title. The winning looks like it will continue for the foreseeable future.
